Possibly, however, the family may be canonically legitimate, in which case it is the most senior extant male-line branch of the Capetians, and senior to the Bourbons which reign today in Spain and Luxembourg and have in the past ruled France, Naples and Sicily, as well as to the House of Braganza, also Capetians by illegitimate descent.

Although the marriage between Louis and Catherine took place before Louis was consecrated as a priest, which would have made it canonically impossible for him to marry, it was kept secret, being against the interests of Louis XI of France. French alliances in the Low Countries were not compatible with those of the House of Egmont. The French king therefore never recognized any children of the marriage as legitimate.

Records are unclear as to whether Louis and Catherine produced any surviving descent in the male line. Evidence just as easily suggests that the Bourbon-Bussets derived from an entirely uncanonical affair between Louis of Bourbon and a mistress.

Were the Bourbon-Busset legitimate, the position of the premier prince would have belonged to the then Count of Busset instead of to Duke Antoine. However, what is certain is that the Bourbon-Bussets, accepting their status as an illegitimate line, whether a matter of fact or law, never claimed the position, and played no significant role either at the French royal court or in the politics of the nation.

Similarly, upon the death of Henry III of France, were the Bourbon-Busset a legitimate dynastical line, the crown should have passed to César de Bourbon-Busset (1565–1630), in male line the late king's 10th cousin. However, he never claimed the crown, and was not proposed by any known partisans as an alternative choice when King Henry III of Navarre, his agnatic 7th cousin once removed, Antoine's son, became king of France and César's liege lord.

As wife of Xavier, Madeleine was, however, proclaimed Queen consort of Spain by the remaining Carlists in 1952. Widowed in 1977, she remained a staunch adherent of her husband's Carlist principles. She excluded her elder son from the funeral of her husband as disloyal to his father's traditionalist Carlism, recognizing instead the claim to Carlist leadership and to Lignières of her younger son Prince Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma, (self-proclaimed) duke of Aranjuez, who continued the rivalry with his brother as Carlist pretender.

A senior male-line descendant of the Bourbon-Busset was the French writer Jacques de Bourbon-Busset (1912–2001), member of the French Academy. President Charles de Gaulle was once quoted telling him: Had it not been for the decision of King Louis XI, you might well be head of state of France today, instead of me.